Reviews (2)

Great Film, when's the DVD coming out?
Charming French Film, revolves around the love affiars of 2-3 people, some seeing old loves, others starting new loves, very well done.

The french "pop" songs, spliced sparingly through-out the film in moments of 30 sec - 1 minute. No dancing (!!! thank goodness) the songs range from the 1930's to the Present. With most of them skewing towards modern times.

Overall, good song choices if anyone knows the song sung in the dinner scene, where Nicholas visits Odile after 8 yrs. please, i'm still lookin wasn't on the French Soundtrack on amazon.co.fr please write it here. i'd pay top dollar for just that song.

I caught this film, back when I had the sundance channel for a while 2 yrs. back, I always had a blank VHS ready to go. Since they ran movies 3 times a week, if it looked intersting the first 2 times, I'd tape it. The beggining is where this film caught my eye. There's a vignette scene where a top German comander in France is ordered by Hitler via phone to destroy Paris in 24 hrs.

After hanging up the phone the comander sits down and opens his mouth and lip-syncs as an old-school record breaks out in the background and it says:

"Two loves of my life
my home and Paris
in times of strife
they set my heart free"

Just beautiful. As is the rest of the film. And then the rest of the film forwards to the mid 90's with the tour guide: the younger Camile sister says, [paraphrasing] "in that building the comander got orders to destroy Paris from Hitler, his motives for not doing so remain obscure." [paraphrasing] .....and then it heads into the realationships thing. When's the DVD coming out?

Resnais' lastest film, this is an outstanding musical comedy
Although released in France in 1997 to nearly universal critical praise, outside of a few domestic film festivals, "Same Old Song" was only screened domestically last year (2000) in select film markets. I saw both showings in Seattle, and found myself thoroughly enchanted by this playful, yet somber, musical comedy by one of the greatest living directors. While Resnais long ago turned away from the self-reflexive, deconstructive style of "Last Year at Marienbad" and "Hiroshima Mon Amour," the 80s and 90s have seen perhaps his most innovative, if least watched, work. His last three films, "Smoking/No Smoking" and "Same Old Song," show that Resnais continues to explore new terrain, at an age when most directors, even great ones, often become rather nostalgic and banal. I spent the last year experimenting with different international releases of this film, all of which invariably suffered from subpar picture quality due to PAL conversion. Before the present release, the only NTSC version was an unsubtitled Canadian release, which had excellent colors but was pan and scan. If your video store does not carry this title, it is well worth the price tag. This first domestic video edition presents the film in widecreen format, with excellent subtitles. Now I am just waiting for the DVD release.

As for the film itself, it is outstanding, possibly Resnais' best film since "Life is a Bed of Roses" (1983), not to take anything away from "Smoking/No Smoking." If anything, "Same Old Song" reminds us that the Romantic Comedy genre should not be dismissed along with the latest Julia Roberts picture. I do not want to spoil the story. I will say only that the final thirty minutes, recalling the hypnotic filmmaking of Resnais' work from the early 60s, are absolutely breathtaking and feature some of the most beautiful images of jellyfish ever filmed. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

My DVD collection isn't complete!...
...until someone releases "Providence"!
It's a film that should stand next to Resnais' "Hiroshima Mon Amour", Godard's "Mépris", and... Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast". Beautiful classical cinema, yet with narrative and visual invention that sets it far from any dull psychological and social chit-chat. Anyone interested in crossroads between reality, dreams, obsessions, hopes and decay should enjoy this immersion in Clive Langham's stream of consciousness. I myself have been looking for a "moral language" eversince I saw the film...

One more vote for a DVD release of this tremendous film.
This is, to my mind, one of the four or five best films of the seventies, and one that continues to give pleasure and inspiration. It's a shame that it isn't better known in the US, and scandalous that it hasn't been issued on DVD.

This Masterwork deserves a DVD release
An oldie but goodie (1969). This film has been one of my favorites since presenting it via a film society 22 years ago. That audience seemed to enjoy it as well.

This unique film possesses some of the most alive English language dialogue to ever hit the screen. Incorporated within the stream of consciousness visuals of master French director Alain Resnais (his first work in English), this film, written by playwright David Mercer, delivers the audience into the mind of a dying and somewhat bitter author (Sir John Gielgud) as he attempts to write one last work of fiction through a painful and sleepless night of rectal pain, albeit increasingly under the influence of an alcoholic beverage. As his minds clouds, his script becomes confused, often with comedic effect.

While sad, bitter sweet, moving and often serious, this film possesses wonderful humor. The recurring images of the "famous footballer" (David Warner), Ellen Burstyn's slicing of a phallic-shaped vegetable while accusing her husband of infidelity and the delivery of Dirk Bogard's pithy lines all conspire to amuse even the most jaded moviegoer. If you don't like a certain scene, be patient, the director/author will take another whack at it - usually with a subtle visual twist.

This is one film worth watching more than once. In fact, you will want to watch it more than once to see what you missed previously.

This masterwork seriously deserves to be re-released as a DVD.

CONSCIENCENESS.......
NOW it IS that kind of work and more.

Dying Author John Gielgud reflects with guilt on his long life, which includes the suicide of his wife [Elaine Stritch]as welll as other moments of regret.

NOT a depressing work, it's a thoughtful moving moody study of this man and his family. It's a sad work, that has to be visited and revisited, encompassing a grand score by Miklos Rosa, and those unique Resnais touches [the frozen sea in frame, but we hear waves crashing!] - when you recall with specific focus a moment [real and animated]but its surrounded by an immobile, frozen landscape [like "Last Year at Marienbad" an earlier and more satisfying work].

The rest of the ensemble? Ellen Burstyn, Dirk Bogarde [always spectacular, always taking risks] and David Warner [the werewolf?].

Elegant and thought-provoking this work deserves a proper DVD restoration.

Also see "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" - excellent companion. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Alain Resnais's 1963 memory film Muriel is a fascinating study ofthe relationship between the way things are remembered--a blend of fact, dream, and falsification--and the way things really are, with cinema itself the crucial bridge. A woman (Delphine Seyrig), haunted by the memory of her first love, meets up with him again and finds he's a long way from being the man she recalls. Meanwhile, her stepson (Jean-Baptiste Thierrée) is preoccupied with a torture death he witnessed in Algeria. In the case of the former, the present-day truths about Seyrig's old flame are mitigated and complicated by recollections of his old self, and what develops is a timeless portrait of the character more alive than his current actuality. In the latter, the young man's refusal to loosen the atrocity's grip on his life becomes increasingly fruitless as the tragedy only exists on film--and the world has moved on despite the injustice. A challenging work by Resnais in which perspective rapidly changes, the film nevertheless has a subtle, haunting quality in which the richness of the past and the bluntness of the present obscure one another and must be reconciled on celluloid. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Resnais Resnais, fantastic Resnais
"Muriel" is one of the greatest films ever made. It is Alan Resnais' ultimate masterstroke. It is better than both "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and "Last Year At Marienbad;" However, it ABSOLUTELY DEMANDS MULTIPLE VIEWINGS. It is a difficult but ultimately magnificent and supremely satisfying film experience.

The first time I saw "Muriel" (it was, for years, extremely hard to find on video and only one video store carried it even in movie mecca L.A.) I was completely confounded by it. The radical presentation of the ordinary characters in the context of their transcendent thoughts and memories seemed to be uninteresting and bland (probably because I hadn't thought of its connections to the universal). I didn't think it warranted any closer attention. But I knew there was something there I was uncomfortable with, a deeper aspect I wasn't picking up. I knew that great films sometimes take a while before they reveal themselves and that I had to come back sometime and reassess it.

After reading a deeply insightful old article from "Cahiers du Cinema" called "The Misfortunes of Muriel" in which Jacques Rivette and a group of other French critics praise this film to the skies and also Truffaut's little piece about it in his book "The Films in My Life," I decided to give it another try.

To say that I'm glad I took the time to make that reassessment is an understatment because this is such an amazingly satisfying film, that once all the pieces of the puzzle come togeher in your head in all their subtle details, THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO COMPARE. You almost feel like you've just seen the birth of cinema. It is nearly flawless in conception and execution and has to be one of the supreme works of art this century. It works on more levels than any other film I can think of, even "Pierrot Le Fou" and "8-1/2." The difference is, almost all of these levels are hidden at first sight. You definitely have to pay UNDIVIDED ATTENTION and CONCENTRATE to start with, especially if you're reading the subtitles in English. Every word is there for a purpose and every shot counts. I'd suggest that you watch it at the bare minimum 4 times before you even presume to make a judgment.

Here are ONLY A FEW of the things I like about "Muriel:" It uses a thriller form with many comic elements that ultimately becomes a sublime tragedy of modern existence. It has superb realism in acting (Marienbad's Delphine Seyrig in her greatest performance plays the lead) to beautifully contrast with what it's really about: the transcendent aspects of life such as memory and the way it and they (the other aspects) affect the present. Sascha Vierny's beautiful faded-tone, color cinematography seems almost calculated for psychological effect (similar to Antonioni's "Red Desert" which it probably influenced) and just indescribably poetic. The eerie, haunting modern music(Henze) used on the soundtrack adds an almost science fiction feel to the atmosphere (similar to "Hiroshima" but more grating and full of nervous tension). The virtuoso, quick cutting in the middle section is completely chronological in nature but elegantly provides multiple perspectives without distorting things with unnecessary length (since all these things are going on pretty much at the same time). The quick cutting, more than anything else, is what throws most viewers off, but after a few viewings you realize that this quick cutting is precisely one of the supreme sources of beauty in the film's overall design.

I cannot recommend this film highly enough for anyone interested in GREAT CINEMA. In fact, even though this is the BEST Resnais film, it isn't exactly the most popular one, and it'll probably take ages before it's available on DVD, and that's why you need to buy the video NOW before they decide to disconinue it.

Alain Resnais' Best Film
Although "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and "Last Year in Marienbad" will always get more press, I think that "Muriel" is Alain Resnais' best film. Beware, if you are not a fan of the most challenging foreign films or of the nouvelle vague, this film will absolutely confound you, it is challenging viewing. Resnais probably revolutionized film even more than Michelangelo Antonioni or Jean-Luc Godard did. "Muriel", the story of some very emotionally ravaged people set in a city being rebuilt after being destroyed during World War II, was the first color film directed by Resnais and features stunning work by his (and Peter Greenaway's) cinematographer, Sacha Vierny. I must recommend it, above all, for its absolutely incredible editing. Watch the first two minutes and be prepared to be blown away by Resnais' cutting techniques. Later, you will see him alternate quickly between scenes during the day and scenes during the night, something Godard later did in "Masculin-Feminin". "Muriel", like any film from Alain Resnais, is one of a kind. Hopefully, "Muriel" will someday become available on DVD using a remastered print, so that the beautiful bright greens and scenes shot in near darkness, will come across in all their glory. For now, we can thank Hen's Tooth Video for making this film available on VHS. ... Read more

Amazon.com

One of the most ferociously iconoclastic and experimental films of the French New Wave, Alain Resnais's 1961 feature, winner of the grand prize at that year's Venice Film Festival, is based on a script by Alain Robbe-Grillet. At its center is what seems to be a simple but unanswerable puzzle: Did its protagonist (Giorgio Albertazzi) have an affair the year before with a woman (Delphine Seyrig) he just met (or possibly re-met) at his hotel? The inquiry becomes an unsettling experiment in flattening the dimensions of past, present, and future so that any difference between them becomes meaningless, while Resnais's coldly formal but oddly dreamlike geometric compositions make space itself seem a function of subjective memory. Add to that Resnais's trademark tracking shots--long, smooth, a visual correlative of a wordless feeling--and this is a film that truly gets under the skin in almost inexplicable ways. One of the most influential works of its time. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (61)

A museum of hermetic beauties
This enigmatic film still hasn't yielded all of its mysteries - mostly because the viewer is awarded complete freedom to give its intricate rythms and figures the significations he or she perceives. The brilliant soundtrack, which combines a textured set of voice-overs and somber organ music, induces reverie... but a reverie highlighted by brief and unforgettable nightmares ('Marienbad' is unsettling to a degree that few movies are). The film's world is above all artistic: it is a 90-minute visit inside a museum of mirrors, statues, photographs and paintings; the characters themselves assume all of these roles over the course of the work. The cinematic image feeds on other images - some are seen in mirrors, others come from illustrations. Everything, from theme to form, is absorbed and transformed by art; this is in line with the notion of "l'art pour l'art" championed by 'Marienbad' writer Robbe-Grillet at the time. The film also has connections with Resnais' own work: memory is as much preserved as it is artistically constructed, and 'X' (Albertazzi) can be read as an artist-figure - something Resnais would return to in 'Providence' (1976). It is tempting to envision the Marienbad chateau and its surroundings as a dedalian labyrinth whose Minotaur lies just out of reach... but this is only one possible reading among countless others. This unique masterpiece should be seen again and again.

avant garde masterpiece
This film is the most radical, experimental and surreal film ever made to this day. Nothing done by any other filmmakers before or since compares to its violation of ordinary modes of cinema, and yet, it establishes its own reality which is perfectly understandable, once one is mesmerized by its beauty.

It is easy to do so, as the film is shot with an immaculately clean and smooth black and white style in an enormous and picturesque resort, with the most elegant and beautiful french actors of the day.

However, the film is far more than picturesque. The writer, Robbe-Grillet, is one of the greatest innovators of 20th century literature and cinema. He stated in the introduction to the published version of the script that his desire was not to confuse the viewer, but to present something closer to what one actually experiences in everyday life than what is given in ordinary storytelling - a combination of present experience, past memories, and future anticipations, all of which are equally important because in the mind, they are so. One does not live life like a storybook - one lives it within the universe of human consciousness, which is exceedingly difficult and complex to record. This is one of the few films to attempt just that.

This DVD is an excellent quality transfer, and the subtitles can be turned off if you want to see the entire screen-image.

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.........
The most tedious film I've ever seen. I had to watch it in film school and I nearly went out of my mind with boredom. VERY hard to sit through. You keep waiting for a story to emerge and it just never does. I suspect that the whole thing might have been a grand joke on the part of the director ... make a nonsense "art" film and see what significance his audience reads into it!!

The classic conflict
A chronicle of what happens when the truth comes knocking in your life. At first the wild love affair while on holiday, but an affair only: When this heart comes back to carry you off for good, there's denial, conflict, and ultimately the hard choice between it and your stalwart, practical mate: the life you'd been leading so comfortably, so accommodatingly, for so long. Enthralling.

PUZZLING SURREALISM. INTERPRET AT WILL.
I've seen many a quaint film in my time, but this one absolutely takes the cake. It came recommended aggressively by a friend who studies film, reason enough for me to be coaxed into renting it.

Let's start with the (semblance of a) plot. It's a seductive story about a handsome nameless man called X, who tries to persuade a, possibly, married elegant nameless woman called A that they met the previous year and had an affair at a spa called Marienbad -- or was it perhaps Fredericksburg? She's a guest at the hotel with her husband or escort, who is referred to only as M and seems to have some control over her. The stranger convincingly goes on to say that she promised to run away with him if he could wait a year. But the truth of that is never made certain, as the women though repeatedly reminded of things that happened at the spa says she can't recall them.

The film moves obsessively between dimensions of time and space, something that may rattle the unprepared viewer. Mind you, it's in black and white, if that sort of thing bothers you (it did me).

So, what was it about? Was it a parody of the typical gloss of a Hollywood romantic film? Or just wonderful nonsense elevated to magnificence? I can't be sure. How one takes to such a deceptively ambiguous film depends on one's attitude toward unconventional films. Reeks of a game of kitsch, but nevertheless was pleasingly entertaining and suitably intellectual. If nothing else, take it for a ride to test your endurance and interpretation. ... Read more

Amazon.com

An extraordinary and deeply moving film that retains much of its power since its original release in 1959, Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour is the story of a French woman (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese man (Eiji Okada) who become lovers in the city of Hiroshima, wherethe U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb to end World War II in the Pacific. Written by Marguerite Duras and juggled, as if by wandering thoughts, in chronology and setting by Resnais, the film reveals the miserable and mortifying experiences of each character during the war and suggests the obvious healing properties of their relationship in the present. An emotional allusion or two can certainly be made with the more recent The English Patient, but nothing can quite prepare one for Resnais's extreme yet intuitively accessible experiments in fusing the past, present, and future into great sweeps of subjectively experienced memory. Yet audiences have never had trouble relating to this bold milestone of the French New Wave, largely because at its heart is a genuinely affecting, soulful love story. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (35)

WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION?
HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (Criterion) is a love affair between a French actress and a Japanese architect that's set against memories of Hiroshima's atomic aftermath. But more than anything, Alan Resnais' first feature is a visual tone poem to life, love and death. Long acknowledged as a foundation stone of French cinema, this film continues to gather gravitas by scholars, critics and others who define and dwell within film culture. From the perspective of the 21st Century, this emotionally heavy story is sometimes pretentious -- mainly because we have become inured to the raw aftershock of Hiroshima and have little fresh experience of just how devastating a real weapon of mass destruction actually is. Underlying Resnais' film is our profound human need to understand the flow of history; that is, our true identity in time and space. Originally released in 1959, this painful love story still has the power stimulate reflection and emotion.

Love among the psychological ruins
Director Alain Resnais' extremely matter-of-fact portrait of an adulterous, interracial relationship was considered frank to the point of shocking in 1959; today few will be even mildly startled. But while time has dimmed this aspect of the film, it has not dimmed the complex and very poetic nature of the film as a whole, and HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR remains one of the finest examples of French "New Wave" cinema. The story itself is simple. An actress (Emmanuelle Riva) has come to Hiroshima to appear in an international film promoting peace. Two days before she is scheduled to return to France, she casually picks up a Japanse architect (Eiji Okada.) Instead of the casual sexual encouter they expect, the two find a profound physical and emotional passion. The depth of this passion leads Riva to make revelations about a tragic wartime romance to Okada--a revelation that leaves her emotionally fractured and vulnerable to Okada's demands that she remain in Hiroshima with him. The two are then faced with the choice of destroying their marriages by continuing the relationship or parting never to see each other again, with neither choice really desirable.

A description of the storyline does not in any way describe what director Resnais does with it. The two leads are exceptional in their handling of the equally exceptional script, which presents us with a series of visual and verbal motifs (hair, hands, heads) that gradually acquire a poetic quality. The cinematography and editing manage to merge a documentary tone with a poetic lyricism. And much of the film's complexity lies in the way it treats the city of Hiroshima, which was destroyed by the atomic bomb and yet rebuilt itself; the city becomes a metaphor for the couple's relationship, the tragedies of passing time, the transient nature of memory, and everything that is both best and worst in human passion. Ultimately, HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR does not present us with any easy answers, either about the couple its story presents or the nature of human passion in all its guises; it also requires full concentration, a certain degree of patience, and the ability to grasp metaphorical content. Because of this, I do not really recommend the film to a purely casual viewer--but those actively seeking a complex cinematic experience will find it makes a powerful, multi-layered statement, and for them I recommend it very highly indeed.

Rememberance and Forgetting..........Hiroshima Mon Amour
Late last night I turned off the lights, layed in my bed, got comfortable, and took in one of my favorite films of all time, Hiroshima Mon Amour. I had seen the film before, and acknowledged its beauty, both visual and lyrical, but last night I really payed close attention, watched carefully, listened carefully, and really took this monumental film in. Now can I say that I have a better understanding of the film? No. In fact, I now have more questions than before. Upon first seeing this film, you will probably be in awe of the beauty of it all. The camera work is STUNNING, the score is one of the greatest ever written for film, and the dialogue is sheer poetry. Mysterious poetry. You'll find yourself wanting to know more about the film, for there are just so many unanswered questions. I could write for hours and hours and waste you wonderful readers' time about what I took from this short (90 minute) masterpiece, but I won't. I will however, tell what I think the point of it all was...........

The point was to show the importance of memory, and of forgetting. When you see the incredible and powerful opening documentary montage on Hiroshima, you will think "why do we forget this?". Such a disasterous and enormous event has all but faded from our memories really. Thus Hiroshima is the perfect setting for this film, about two lovers, a French actress and Japanese (very French Japanese i might add, haha) who have a fling. The man wants the woman to stay, he is scared he'll forget about her if she leaves. The woman begins to open up about her tragic past in Nevers, France, a place she would love to forget, but cannot. This theme is carried through the entire film, through to the last scene in a hotel, where the woman breaks down and cries "I'll forget you in a few years, I know I will!" Thus they give eachother names, for they havent had names up to this point, Hiroshima and Nevers. Two places that they will NEVER forget, and hopefully will associate with their lover.

This film is brilliant, beautiful, and DEEP. certainly not for every taste. It really makes one question why we forget things, and why we should remember things.

I have not even BEGUN to tell about this film, you must see it for yourself. it truly is remarkable.

Brilliant film on the illusion of never forgetting
One of the prime examples of the French New Wave, a style of cinema that focused more on a personalized visual and experimental styles, with increased depths of feelings and exploration of themes, was Alain Resnais's debut effort, Hiroshima Mon Amour, which explored the effects of the atomic bomb and underscored the need to remember traumatic but profound memories for fear of them being repeated.

There is a symbolic part in the movie of an arm enfolded over a body, all encrusted in frost. Soon, the frost turns to beads of water, which in turn is the sweat of two bodies together. Old passions reawoken, an intimate meeting of two cultures, and that depicts the love story between a French actress playing a nurse in a film on peace and a Japanese architect. Both, it turns out, are happily married, yet there's something wanting in the woman, and it all goes back to her traumatic past during the war, in her hometown of Nevers in Central France, Southeastish from Orleans, and situated on the Loire River. After a night in bed, the couple spend the remainder of the next day together. For the man, it's a desperate attempt to hold onto her, as she has to leave tomorrow for Paris. For the woman, it's an internal turmoil involving her past and her growing attraction to the man, to whom she confides in.

But it's interesting to see the POV's of both. For the architect, Hiroshima became a part of history indelibly imbedded in the Japanese psyche. For the actress, Hiroshima meant "the end of war, the real end...[I was] stunned that they had dared, stunned that they succeeded, then the beginning of a new fear, followed by indifference, and also the fear of indifference." That is a source of bitterness to every Japanese, that the whole world rejoiced at the end of the war, including the actress.

The initial half of the film is shot documentary style over the woman's narration, witnessing the legacy of Hiroshima fourteen years after the fact. For her, seeing the newsreel footage, the memorial sites built at detonation point, and the movies made of the victims, is being there. It is the footage from the films that is pretty grim, be it burns on people, peeling skin, closeups on deformed and scorched hands, many on children and infants, and bald patches on hair. "I felt the heat on Peace Square in Hiroshima. 10,000 degrees in Peace Square" she says, to which the architect's voice intones "No, you saw nothing in Hiroshima." He is more connected by the reality because he is Japanese, so how can she know, witness, or feel the concept of Hiroshima? She feels tied more by empathy, with the film she's making and her own experiences during the war.

The testament to war and victimization is by her narration on why people are angry when they are deprived of their dignity and the necessities to survive: "It is the principle of inequality advanced by certain peoples against other people. By certain races against other races, by certain classes against other classes."

Resnais tweaks the conventional linear narrative flow with one combining past, present, and future into one and using flashbacks reconciling time with memory. And some fluid camera shots panning down the Hiroshima concourses and streets are well executed. The actress's romantic past and newfound encounter mesh with her taking in the city: "Just as in love, there is the illusion that it can never be forgotten. So with Hiroshima, I had the illusion that I would never forget...just as in love." But can she forget the architect when she returns to her husband and children in France?

Both leads, Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada, carry this movie. Lyrical, moody, thoughtful, and with brilliant cinematography utilizing the darkness of the cafes and nighttime streets, and the whiteness of the actress's dress. Riva herself exhibits a forlorn, credulous, frail, and ultimately vulnerable woman in the actress, while Okada's architect is stolid, sardonic, but also at breaking point when it looks as if he's going to lose her.

Despite the long-trod thought of "never again," the actress's thoughts paints a bleak future of mankind unless it gives up its warlike savage ways: "It will happen again. 200,000 dead. 80,000 wounded in 9 seconds. ...10,000 degrees on Earth, 10,000 suns on Earth. The asphalt will burn. Chaos will reign. A whole city will be lifted off the ground, then drift down in ashes."

Victims of War
This is an excellent film that depicts the pain and suffering of war on the large and individual scale. By contrasting the two, the film is able to make its' message that much more profound.

The film takes palce in Hiroshima circa 1959 and begins as we hear the voices of two quieted lovers. The woman talks about what she has learned from witnessing the bombing of Hiroshima. The man constantly reminds her that she was not there. As the voices (in French) become faces, we see a French woman and a Japanese man. The woman is clearly very happy and full of life. Their relationship is about to end (it apparrently had barely begun). The man does not want to lose his new-found lover and persists over the next 24 hours to try and talk her into staying. At one point, the woman recalls the emotional tragedy that she suffered at the end of WWII in France. As she painstakingly recalls the events of 14 years ago, we watch her gradually disintegrate into a depressed shell of her earlier self. This is the tragic beauty of this movie and an effective way to show the horrors of war. Part of the problem of comprehending the devastation of war is often the immensity of it. As we are shown some graphic pictures and statistics of the A bomb's effect on Hiroshima, it sometimes gets hard to put it in human context. By "superimposing" the story of a woman's emotional tragedy and its' self destruction of her, we see the human effects. Her point at the beginning of the movie; that she know's what happened in Hiroshima, becomes understandable in this context. Ironically, the Japanese man, whose family perished in the bomb while he was serving elsewhere in the army, seems to be the one who was less affected by the war.

This movie is one of those whose meaning grows on you. I bought the DVD and, while I'm no techical expert, am quite satisfied with its' quality. I initially thought the price tag to be pretty steep. After viewing it once, I have come to look on it as a bargain. ... Read more

Amazon.com

A frothy 1925 operetta, performed by a glittering cast that includes Sabine Azema and Audrey Tautou, might not sound precisely like the great director Alain Resnais's glass of champagne. But Not on the Lips (Pas sur la bouche) is in a line of Resnais films that uses false sets and stylized acting for its effect. This musical farce follows a wife (Azema) trying to keep her husband (Pierre Arditi) from learning that she was actually married once before--to an American who is about to become hubby's business partner. Awkward. Audrey Tautou, in a distinctly supporting role, navigates the trickery of flirtation as she tries to attract lounge lizard-y Jalil Lespert. Azema and Arditi are smooth as glass, but the standout here is Lambert Wilson (the French dude of the Matrix saga) as the tall, cigar-smoking American businessman, who disdains the un-hygenic dangers of kissing on the lips. Wilson's delivery of English phrases and his American-accented French is spot-on--you can hear the joke even if you don't speak French. The lightness of touch is maintained throughout, however gently the director of Last Year at Marienbad may be prodding at the undercurrents of Franco-American hostility (which probably seemed more loaded in 2004 than in 1925) and marital anxiety. --Robert Horton ... Read more

Reviews (3)

One of the Year's Best Films
Despite not getting a theatrical release Alain Resnais' ("Hiroshima mon amour") "Not On The Lips" is without doubt one of the best films I've seen this year. How sad that the movie will not be opened to larger audiences as this was one of the few films I've seen where I can say I had a lot of fun watching it.

"Not On The Lips" is a throwback to those wonderful comedies and musicals that were made back in the 1930's. Resnais says one of his main sources of inspiration were the Hal Roach comedies. Roach for those that don't know was a comedy producer who had such stars as Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chase, and Zasu Pitts.

The film is really just eye candy. It is filmmed in bright lavish colors with characters wearing glamorous glowns and tuxedos. And everybody is singing about love. The only other recent movie I can think of to compare this movie to, in order to give you an idea of what to expect is a movie Woody Allen made a few years back called "Everyone Says I Love You". Both films carry a sentimentality of 30's cinema.

Gilberte Valandray (Sabine Azema) is married to Georges (Pierre Arditi) but has a lover, Charley (Jalil Lespert) now is just so happens that Huguette a friend secretly has a crush on Charley and wants to marry him. So the two women fight for his attention. Now Georges is a business man who is about to close a big deal for his company with an American, Eric Thomas (Lambert Wilson). But, what Georges doesn't know is that Gilberte was married before to Eric. Now Gilberte and her sister, Arlette (Isabelle Nanty) must try an convince Eric not to reveal Gilberte's secret. But Eric is still in love with Gilberte. And that's "Not On The Lips" is a nutshell. It's really a broad bedroom farce, though I don't know if that term is used anymore.

I found that I enjoyed most of the musical numbers which come from a 1920's comic opera written by Andre Barde. The last three songs I didn't like especially a song about a key hole.

Now that you know the plot I think it's fairly easy to decide if this is "your kind of movie". If you've enjoyed past films from Resnais, this should please you. If you've never heard of Alain Resnais but like old-fashioned musical-comedies, this just please you as well. I hope many people make an effort to see this gem of a movie.

Bottom-line: One of the best films I've seen this year. A throwback to the musical\comedies of the 1930's. Greatly inspired by the Hal Roach comedies.

A Delicious Bon Bon of Musical French Fluff
PAS SUR LA BOUCHE is a beautifully wrapped French confection that brings to the screen a performance of a French operetta by the same name.One may question why, in 2003, anyone would want to devote time and money to a story so light and Feydeau-farcical and, even more, why a director of the stature of Alain Resnais would be at the helm.Well, take a deep breath, swallow credibility, and sit back and enjoy this glittering little piece for what it is - entertainment.

As in musicals of the 1920s around the world (especially those in the USA!) the story is about love, misinformation, tricks, covering past affairs, and the usual nonsense of play within the play.The story is unimportant: the pleasure is all in the technique of the actors/singers who treat this light score with just the right amount of magic to make it work.Audrey Tautou, Sabine Azéma, Isabelle Nanty, Pierre Arditi, Jalil Lespert, Daniel Prévost, and Lambert Wilson give it their all.

Resnais' hand is evident in the stage movement, use of mirrors and disappearing exits.Even the titles and ending credits keep the candy going. For those who are not fluent in French, the subtitles will draw focus: the singing and dialogue are so rapid that there is little time for the eye to stray to the characters!In all, not a film for everyone, but if French farce is your cup of tea, it doesn't get more charming than this!Grady Harp, April 05

Delightful French Operetta, or Lightweight Musical Comedy
Perhaps you want to know something about the star of 'Amelie' first.But facts first.Based on the operetta first staged in 1925, 'Not on the Lips' ('Pas Sur La Bouche!') is a lightweight musical comedy, starring Sabine Azema, Isabella Nanty, Audrey Tautou, Pierre Arditi, Darry Cowl, Jalil Lespert, Daniel Prevost, and Lambert Wilson (the mysterious French character in 'Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions').

So this is a comedy with ensemble cast.Regardless of what you see on the DVD cover, Audrey Tautou's role is not big, but not small.That, however, does not change the fact that 'Not on the Lips' is a fun to watch for the fans of operetta, or kind of silly but delightful, old-fashioned farce with little songs and neat art deco.

The film, which does not hide its stage origin, is divided into three 'acts.'The story starts when George (Arditi) rather pompously tells of his theory about love -- he says, to any woman, the first love is always the best love.Little does he know that his wife Gilberte (Azema) was (fleetingly) married to an American, one Eric Thompson (Wilson), and to her great surprise, Eric is coming to her house as her unsuspecting husband's business partner.

Thus, as the rules of farce, the mistaken (and hidden) identities and door slamming complicate the situations.Things get more confusing (and funny) when starry-eyed Huguette (Tautou) falls in love with the hunky 'artist' Charley (Lespert), who in turn chases Gilberte .... and so on an on.Can't you follow the relations now?It's okay, anyway, you can when you see the film itself.

The film is full of playful songs (sung by the cast), and they are mostly enjoyable, though they might sound repetitous.The problems is not that; it is, probably non-French-speaking audience would not fully appreciate the joy that these songs and dialogus convey.(I must confess that I, being a Japanese, couldn't.)Plenty of puns like 'Cubism' and 'CooCoo-ism' could be heard, but many of them just flew over my head.

And as the film retains some of the now out-of-date values and manners (intentionally, I guess), you may be slightly embarrassed, hearing the phoney 'American' English -- hear Lambert Wilson's 'WHATDDYA SAY' -- or seeing a hunk who looks like Rudolph Valentino.

But the film succeeds in creating the joyful mood, and though the contents are slight, it is great to see the glitteringly gorgeous costumes that none of us would wear today.For someone like veteran director Alain Resnais ('Last Year at Marienbad' and many many others), it must be an easy job.(By the way, he was born in 1922.)

It's a fluff, to be sure, but in a way it's an admirable job, for, even among the recent revival of musicals, no one can and would make a film like this today -- these charming songs you might hear on old LP records, the fluffy clothes, and talk about 'resque' that is no longer 'risque' these days.You may like it, ot hate it.I happen to like it, and charming Audrey Tautou too,that's why 4 stars. ... Read more

Reviews (61)

A museum of hermetic beauties
This enigmatic film still hasn't yielded all of its mysteries - mostly because the viewer is awarded complete freedom to give its intricate rythms and figures the significations he or she perceives. The brilliant soundtrack, which combines a textured set of voice-overs and somber organ music, induces reverie... but a reverie highlighted by brief and unforgettable nightmares ('Marienbad' is unsettling to a degree that few movies are). The film's world is above all artistic: it is a 90-minute visit inside a museum of mirrors, statues, photographs and paintings; the characters themselves assume all of these roles over the course of the work. The cinematic image feeds on other images - some are seen in mirrors, others come from illustrations. Everything, from theme to form, is absorbed and transformed by art; this is in line with the notion of "l'art pour l'art" championed by 'Marienbad' writer Robbe-Grillet at the time. The film also has connections with Resnais' own work: memory is as much preserved as it is artistically constructed, and 'X' (Albertazzi) can be read as an artist-figure - something Resnais would return to in 'Providence' (1976). It is tempting to envision the Marienbad chateau and its surroundings as a dedalian labyrinth whose Minotaur lies just out of reach... but this is only one possible reading among countless others. This unique masterpiece should be seen again and again.

avant garde masterpiece
This film is the most radical, experimental and surreal film ever made to this day. Nothing done by any other filmmakers before or since compares to its violation of ordinary modes of cinema, and yet, it establishes its own reality which is perfectly understandable, once one is mesmerized by its beauty.

It is easy to do so, as the film is shot with an immaculately clean and smooth black and white style in an enormous and picturesque resort, with the most elegant and beautiful french actors of the day.

However, the film is far more than picturesque. The writer, Robbe-Grillet, is one of the greatest innovators of 20th century literature and cinema. He stated in the introduction to the published version of the script that his desire was not to confuse the viewer, but to present something closer to what one actually experiences in everyday life than what is given in ordinary storytelling - a combination of present experience, past memories, and future anticipations, all of which are equally important because in the mind, they are so. One does not live life like a storybook - one lives it within the universe of human consciousness, which is exceedingly difficult and complex to record. This is one of the few films to attempt just that.

This DVD is an excellent quality transfer, and the subtitles can be turned off if you want to see the entire screen-image.

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.........
The most tedious film I've ever seen. I had to watch it in film school and I nearly went out of my mind with boredom. VERY hard to sit through. You keep waiting for a story to emerge and it just never does. I suspect that the whole thing might have been a grand joke on the part of the director ... make a nonsense "art" film and see what significance his audience reads into it!!

The classic conflict
A chronicle of what happens when the truth comes knocking in your life. At first the wild love affair while on holiday, but an affair only: When this heart comes back to carry you off for good, there's denial, conflict, and ultimately the hard choice between it and your stalwart, practical mate: the life you'd been leading so comfortably, so accommodatingly, for so long. Enthralling.

PUZZLING SURREALISM. INTERPRET AT WILL.
I've seen many a quaint film in my time, but this one absolutely takes the cake. It came recommended aggressively by a friend who studies film, reason enough for me to be coaxed into renting it.

Let's start with the (semblance of a) plot. It's a seductive story about a handsome nameless man called X, who tries to persuade a, possibly, married elegant nameless woman called A that they met the previous year and had an affair at a spa called Marienbad -- or was it perhaps Fredericksburg? She's a guest at the hotel with her husband or escort, who is referred to only as M and seems to have some control over her. The stranger convincingly goes on to say that she promised to run away with him if he could wait a year. But the truth of that is never made certain, as the women though repeatedly reminded of things that happened at the spa says she can't recall them.

The film moves obsessively between dimensions of time and space, something that may rattle the unprepared viewer. Mind you, it's in black and white, if that sort of thing bothers you (it did me).

So, what was it about? Was it a parody of the typical gloss of a Hollywood romantic film? Or just wonderful nonsense elevated to magnificence? I can't be sure. How one takes to such a deceptively ambiguous film depends on one's attitude toward unconventional films. Reeks of a game of kitsch, but nevertheless was pleasingly entertaining and suitably intellectual. If nothing else, take it for a ride to test your endurance and interpretation. ... Read more

Amazon.com essential video

Following a pair of films (Stavisky, Providence) that were more conventionally narrative than his explosively experimental early works (Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad), French New Wave pioneer director Alain Resnais began a cycle of films beginning in 1980(all written by Jean Gruault) that delved deeply into his philosophical and aesthetic concerns again. The first of these was Mon Oncle d'Amerique, starring Gérard Depardieu as one of three middle-class characters undergoing great degrees of personal stress. Presented as a docudrama of sorts with some pulp-fiction qualities, these parallel tales don't really resolve themselves within their own borders but gain another dimension of subjective resolution when Resnais ushers in a real-life scientist to discuss certain kinds of behavioral triggers in humans. The results are actually very satisfying and witty for viewers who can see the overt psychological elements not as a smug commentary on the action but a means of opening the action to a viewer's subconscious experience. Resnais takes the bold step of creating a new kind of filmed story here, and largely succeeds. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (7)

What Film Should Be
This picture has compelling drama that ranks with the height of American film in the '40s and '50s and insightful intellectual themes that proves it to be a forerunner of modern works like "Waking Life." Thoroughly engaging, trying and reasonably positive in the end. A masterpiece.

Poor DVD quality aside, this release is WELL worth the price
There are certain directors whose films can survive even the worst video transfers, and Resnais is one of them. Not that New Yorker Video should not be chastized for giving us yet another scandalously poor video and audio transfer of a classic film. Rather, one should not let the poor DVD quality deter one from buying this DVD, as Resnais' MON ONCLE d'AMERIQUE is masterful and argueably the director's greatest achievement. To be completely honest, in my humble opinion Resnais is the greatest living director. For what it is worth, I have seen everyone of his feature films, including everything in the 80s and 90s, and I find this picture to be the most compelling. Having carried out his most rigorous investigation of the time and memory of personal consciousness in "Je T'aime, Je T'aime," Resnais' work in the 70s undergoes a gradual shift in emphasis toward a time and memory belonging to community. At the risk of sounding overly reductive, one might locate the decisive moment of this shift in "Providence," in which the radically subjective, stream of consciousness narrative is completely undermined in the film's epilogue. In reflecting on Mon Oncle d'Amerique, I think it is paramount that one sees the film in the context of this decisive shift (which is not to say that Resnais simply abandons his earlier project). The film produces some of the most extraordinary images of time and memory reconfigured from the standpoint of community, and argueably marks the director's crowning achievement. One need look no further than the opening sequence in which a camera circles around a canvas comprised of still shots from scenes in the film, such that already at the film's outset the viewer is confronted with an image of the whole.

Having laid out this context, I strongly disagree with the general presupposition, betrayed in Maltin's summary and many of the customer reviews below, that Resnais has somehow attempted here to illustrate the behavorial theories of Henri Laborit. Resnais himself (in the DVD notes) expressly rejects this reading, which is nowhere corraborated by the film itself. He explains that in the film he has tried to set the biologist's theories and the narrative side by side, such that the two elements can co-exist, without either one dominating the other. The unmistably ambivalent tone of the ending testifies to the success with which Resnais has executed this vision. The superb direction and screenplay are supported by an outstanding score and an excellent cast. I cannot recommend this DVD more highly.

Terrible audio and video.
I don't know about the actual movie... The DVD audio is just awful -- imagine the distortion you get when the volume is set higher than cheap computer speakers can handle, now imagine getting this distortion every time somebody speaks no matter what volume your tv is set at.

Also, people move at the wrong speed, and not even a "consistent" wrong speed. The subtitles are part of the picture; they can't be turned off.

Resnais' best film as far as I know.
I haven't seen 'Smoking and Non-Smoking' and not that singing film he did recently, but otherwise I'm pretty well informed about Resnais and amongst his other work I rank this film as being his best.

It lacks many of the 'arty' touches, that Resnais otherwise and most regrettfully endulges in. This one tells it to you straight - most people live lives that resembles what rats do in captivity or otherwise. The comparison is most amusing but there is a very serious side to it as well. In the end Resnais states: "As long as we do not realize that we use the cortex of our brains chiefly in order to dominant others, then nothing can change." Power'full' (powerless really, since directed against power) words indeed.

People break their necks in order to fit in or make a career, which in truth is as rediculous as when Stan Laurel speaks of it in that wonderful short "Their First Mistake". When will this madness of competition between people cease in order to leave room for a competition directed towards your own ability to enhance your consciousness instead? When will competition for competitions sake alone cease, a competition which does not even care about what it is competing about, as, for instance, present competition of market economy, which is just a competition about the 'skills' of cheating one another? That is the question and Resnais doesn't have the answer but at least he poses the question.

Minor Resnais
*Mon Oncle d'Amerique* is a smoothly crafted, occasionally funny, but ultimately rather thin exploration of the theories of behavioral psychologist Henri Laborit. Juxtaposing interviews with Laborit that feel like lectures with fictional scenes illustrating his theories, it all feels more than a touch diagrammatic. Laborit's ideas allow Resnais to explore his familiar interests in time and memory, but the film never escapes an air of cute pointlessness. The idea of mixing didactic material with fictional constructions is certainly intriguing, but this example of it isn't much more than a promising sketch.

Though certainly not "sketchy" or "unfinished." With the possible exception of the rather tepid *Je t'aime, Je t'aime,* Resnais seems incapable of making a film that isn't polished to the nines. Once again we're treated to the smooth camera moves of *Marienbad,* the artful editing of *Stavisky* and *Hiroshima, mon amour,* the lovely, delicate shots of the seaside first seen in *Muriel.* Although New Yorker's transfer is never much better than adequate (and would be improved considerably by being presented in a widescreen aspect ratio), it's good enough to prove to any doubters Resnais's consummate technical finesse.

Unfortunately, the film also supports the criticism frequently leveled against the director, that in the pursuit of exquisite form, he abandons all interest in character. I don't agree with this criticism. (Even if I did, I don't know why anyone feels comfortable dismissing "mere" formal perfection as if it were an everyday occurrence.) Nonetheless, with Laborit quietly intoning every few minutes, it's far too obvious that the characters are being pushed this way and that to fit his theories, walking through a demonstration rather than living convincing lives.

Maybe the film needs a bit more skepticism. There are sardonic touches at the edges. For example, when one character high on the bureaucratic ladder arrives at work, everyone in the hall he passes makes a point of shaking his hand. We realize he's fallen when he arrives and everyone looks away from him. There's nothing that undercuts Laborit's basic thesis, however. If Resnais felt as playful with the ideas as he does with the characters (he occasionally has them acting out their aggressions dressed in rat costume, for example), if he weren't so impressed and convinced by them, the film would have more spark. Instead, *Mon Oncle d'Amerique* is a neatly turned experiment, defined and limited by the validity of Laborit's theories. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

"You have to dream of him and imagine his dreams."
Best known for the beautifully framed but now almost comically elusive and incomprehensible Last Year at Marienbad, Stavisky is one of Alain Resnais' most accessible films and one where he manages to marry style and narrative structure to his subject perfectly. While it helps to have some grounding in the disastrous pre-WW2 financial scandal his anti-hero precipitated to get the most out of the film, his approach is particularly well-judged.

For much of the movie we meet Stavisky, financier and con-man, at the height of his powers and the film concentrates both on his style and extravagance - he passionately believes that you have to be seen to lose money on frivolities to make money - and his play-acting - he is even seen reading a part onstage opposite an auditioning actress. Stavisky is a constant contradiction, a man who spends money to be remembered when he would be better spending it to be forgotten, whose need to be loved for the moment makes him unable to deal with oncoming disasters when they can still be averted. As Michel Lonsdale's doctor notes, "To understand Stavisky sometimes you have to forget files. You have to dream of him and to imagine his dreams." Stavisky remains an enigma simply because he is so simple - there is no real secret to him. Like his fortune, he simply invents himself.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is superb in the lead, at once at home in luxury and high society but still able to pull a petty swindle over stolen gems, supremely confident and alive in company yet in private haunted by his father's suicide over the dishonor his early arrests bought on the family name that drives him to strive to live purely in the present. He's complimented by Charles Boyer's wonderful final performance as an aristocrat who has happily wasted the fortune his ancestors took generations to amass over the course of his single lifetime and can forgive his friend anything for the joy to be alive that his company brings. The moment his casually anti-semitic right-wing aristocrat discovers that Stavisky is not only not French but a Jew is beautifully observed: he stands by him as a friend, but is disappointed that he was not honest to him, while displaying just a trace of awareness that had Stavisky been honest, he never would have become his friend.

But this is the story of a fall from a great height - indeed, our first view of Stavisky is of him descending in an elevator as Trostsky arrives in France to seek asylum. It is only in the last third that the dominoes start to fall and the real conspiracy starts to emerge. Stavisky is a criminal, a former petty informer who now has somehow managed to reverse roles and now has most of the government and police in his pocket and acting as his informers, but he himself is being used. Not only is he planning to block funds to facilitate the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (to him simply a financial opportunity: he has no conception of the moral consequences of his actions) but his downfall is used to destroy the left in French politics. (It is only here that the initially clumsy device of paralleling Stavisky's fall with Trotsky's brief period of exile in France comes into focus.) Although his end is not shown, it is left clear that he was more pawn than prime mover. Ultimately his fall leaves the left destroyed, the far right in control and only the most innocent imprisoned.

In a film full of pluses, the script is superb, Resnais' use of the camera impeccable and there's even a good score from Stephen Sondheim. The only major minus is Resnais' handling of the actresses - more vacant than vital, as is so often the case in his films of this era - and the tendency to turn the left-wing characters into purely walking-talking ideological monologues.

Sadly, the Image DVD is a little problematic - aside from it not always being recognised by my player, the transfer is acceptable but not entirely without problems (it appears to be a standards conversion from a PAL master) and none of the few extras (including an audio interview with the camera-shy Resnais) from the StudioCanal disc in France that it has been cloned from have made the leap across the Atlantic. Highly recommended, nonetheless.

(A version of this review appeared in Movie Collector magazine)

Reverie
Alain Resnais's "Stavisky..." provides a fictionalized account of the last months of the notorious swindler (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo), whose financial shell games brought down the French government in the early 1930s. I sometimes think that the word "exquisite" was coined to describe this film and I don't mean that entirely positively. Immaculately designed, shot, lit and cut, nearly perfect in its way, "Stavisky..." is designer filmmaking at its most refined, elegant and yes, precious.

Resnais and screenwriter Jorge Semprun are very conscious of the fictional nature of what they are presenting, to the point of beginning the film with a disclaimer. Whatever the historical reality of the Stavisky character, we certainly believe that as portrayed by Belmondo, he could sell coals to Newcastle. He is aided by a host of first-rate French actors, including Michel Lonsdale, François Perrier and especially Charles Boyer, in a final performance that makes every gesture into the physical equivalent of an aphorism. The force of the actors' personalities, the fastidious period recreation, Stephen Sondheim's jazzy score, all contribute to the film's point: no matter what evil Stavisky may have caused, it was impossible for those who knew him well not to be taken in by the romance he could conjure out of thin air.

This willingness to excuse corruption by dint of style seems very French, and as an alternative to the easy moralizing of American culture, very refreshing. Still, the glamorized decadence may be easy to enjoy as the intricate surface of a movie, but not so easy to imagine forgiving in reality, particularly for the victims of it. (Among other things, Stavisky was responsible for flooding France with millions of francs of worthless government bonds.) I'm not suggesting that the film would be improved by a sanctimonious, Hollywood-style reminder of the evils of corruption. It would be ruined by such a banality. Rather, because we cannot ever quite forget the reality of the period (the actions take place in the depths of the Great Depression, after all), we also can never quite accept the film's aestheticized vision as anything other than an extremely beautiful evasion.

In a sense, that evasion does get at a reality of the thirties, the willingness of the rich and powerful to turn away from the ever-deepening crises around them. The problem is that in so successfully achieving the world view of a thin-blooded, exhausted society, "Stavisky..." seems a tad removed itself. But exquisitely so.

AMAZING TRUE TALE OF FRENCH SCAM ARTIST
"STAVISKY" is the true story of Serge Alexandre, known to the world as Stavisky. And Belmondo is terrific as the titular con artist who looted France during the 1930s. Acclaimed director Alain Resnais shepherds a consummate cast that includes Charles Boyer through this lavishly mounted saga of deception, romance, and bittersweet justice. Stephen Sondheim's big score is memorable and evokes the era as well as the moral corruption. You will believe the time and place and characters as the events unfold like a grand, medievel morality play but with superb production values. An odd and interersting film about an amoral character driven by greed and power. Deadly sins both. Belmondo is pitch perfect. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

"You have to dream of him and imagine his dreams."
Best known for the beautifully framed but now almost comically elusive and incomprehensible Last Year at Marienbad, Stavisky is one of Alain Resnais' most accessible films and one where he manages to marry style and narrative structure to his subject perfectly. While it helps to have some grounding in the disastrous pre-WW2 financial scandal his anti-hero precipitated to get the most out of the film, his approach is particularly well-judged.

For much of the movie we meet Stavisky, financier and con-man, at the height of his powers and the film concentrates both on his style and extravagance - he passionately believes that you have to be seen to lose money on frivolities to make money - and his play-acting - he is even seen reading a part onstage opposite an auditioning actress. Stavisky is a constant contradiction, a man who spends money to be remembered when he would be better spending it to be forgotten, whose need to be loved for the moment makes him unable to deal with oncoming disasters when they can still be averted. As Michel Lonsdale's doctor notes, "To understand Stavisky sometimes you have to forget files. You have to dream of him and to imagine his dreams." Stavisky remains an enigma simply because he is so simple - there is no real secret to him. Like his fortune, he simply invents himself.

Jean-Paul Belmondo is superb in the lead, at once at home in luxury and high society but still able to pull a petty swindle over stolen gems, supremely confident and alive in company yet in private haunted by his father's suicide over the dishonor his early arrests bought on the family name that drives him to strive to live purely in the present. He's complimented by Charles Boyer's wonderful final performance as an aristocrat who has happily wasted the fortune his ancestors took generations to amass over the course of his single lifetime and can forgive his friend anything for the joy to be alive that his company brings. The moment his casually anti-semitic right-wing aristocrat discovers that Stavisky is not only not French but a Jew is beautifully observed: he stands by him as a friend, but is disappointed that he was not honest to him, while displaying just a trace of awareness that had Stavisky been honest, he never would have become his friend.

But this is the story of a fall from a great height - indeed, our first view of Stavisky is of him descending in an elevator as Trostsky arrives in France to seek asylum. It is only in the last third that the dominoes start to fall and the real conspiracy starts to emerge. Stavisky is a criminal, a former petty informer who now has somehow managed to reverse roles and now has most of the government and police in his pocket and acting as his informers, but he himself is being used. Not only is he planning to block funds to facilitate the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (to him simply a financial opportunity: he has no conception of the moral consequences of his actions) but his downfall is used to destroy the left in French politics. (It is only here that the initially clumsy device of paralleling Stavisky's fall with Trotsky's brief period of exile in France comes into focus.) Although his end is not shown, it is left clear that he was more pawn than prime mover. Ultimately his fall leaves the left destroyed, the far right in control and only the most innocent imprisoned.

In a film full of pluses, the script is superb, Resnais' use of the camera impeccable and there's even a good score from Stephen Sondheim. The only major minus is Resnais' handling of the actresses - more vacant than vital, as is so often the case in his films of this era - and the tendency to turn the left-wing characters into purely walking-talking ideological monologues.

Sadly, the Image DVD is a little problematic - aside from it not always being recognised by my player, the transfer is acceptable but not entirely without problems (it appears to be a standards conversion from a PAL master) and none of the few extras (including an audio interview with the camera-shy Resnais) from the StudioCanal disc in France that it has been cloned from have made the leap across the Atlantic. Highly recommended, nonetheless.

(A version of this review appeared in Movie Collector magazine)

Reverie
Alain Resnais's "Stavisky..." provides a fictionalized account of the last months of the notorious swindler (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo), whose financial shell games brought down the French government in the early 1930s. I sometimes think that the word "exquisite" was coined to describe this film and I don't mean that entirely positively. Immaculately designed, shot, lit and cut, nearly perfect in its way, "Stavisky..." is designer filmmaking at its most refined, elegant and yes, precious.

Resnais and screenwriter Jorge Semprun are very conscious of the fictional nature of what they are presenting, to the point of beginning the film with a disclaimer. Whatever the historical reality of the Stavisky character, we certainly believe that as portrayed by Belmondo, he could sell coals to Newcastle. He is aided by a host of first-rate French actors, including Michel Lonsdale, François Perrier and especially Charles Boyer, in a final performance that makes every gesture into the physical equivalent of an aphorism. The force of the actors' personalities, the fastidious period recreation, Stephen Sondheim's jazzy score, all contribute to the film's point: no matter what evil Stavisky may have caused, it was impossible for those who knew him well not to be taken in by the romance he could conjure out of thin air.

This willingness to excuse corruption by dint of style seems very French, and as an alternative to the easy moralizing of American culture, very refreshing. Still, the glamorized decadence may be easy to enjoy as the intricate surface of a movie, but not so easy to imagine forgiving in reality, particularly for the victims of it. (Among other things, Stavisky was responsible for flooding France with millions of francs of worthless government bonds.) I'm not suggesting that the film would be improved by a sanctimonious, Hollywood-style reminder of the evils of corruption. It would be ruined by such a banality. Rather, because we cannot ever quite forget the reality of the period (the actions take place in the depths of the Great Depression, after all), we also can never quite accept the film's aestheticized vision as anything other than an extremely beautiful evasion.

In a sense, that evasion does get at a reality of the thirties, the willingness of the rich and powerful to turn away from the ever-deepening crises around them. The problem is that in so successfully achieving the world view of a thin-blooded, exhausted society, "Stavisky..." seems a tad removed itself. But exquisitely so.

AMAZING TRUE TALE OF FRENCH SCAM ARTIST
"STAVISKY" is the true story of Serge Alexandre, known to the world as Stavisky. And Belmondo is terrific as the titular con artist who looted France during the 1930s. Acclaimed director Alain Resnais shepherds a consummate cast that includes Charles Boyer through this lavishly mounted saga of deception, romance, and bittersweet justice. Stephen Sondheim's big score is memorable and evokes the era as well as the moral corruption. You will believe the time and place and characters as the events unfold like a grand, medievel morality play but with superb production values. An odd and interersting film about an amoral character driven by greed and power. Deadly sins both. Belmondo is pitch perfect. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Though only a short subject, this groundbreaking documentary remains oneof the most influential and powerful explorations of the Holocaust ever made.Director Alain Resnais bluntly presents an indictment not only of the Nazis but of the world community, and the film is all the more remarkable for its harsh judgment considering the time in which it was made, less than a decade after the end of the war, when questions of responsibility were not yet being addressed. Juxtaposing archival clips from the concentration camps across Germany and Poland with the present-day denials of the camps' existence, the film seeks to once and for all expose the horrifying truth of the Final Solution, as well as to address the continuing anti-Semitism and bigotry that existed long after the war's end.An invaluable resource and testament to history, this film was a profound influence on all films to address issues of the Holocaust, from Judgment at Nuremberg and Shoah to Schindler's List. Night and Fog remains an essential and indispensable document of the 20th century. --Robert Lane ... Read more

Reviews (32)

Beautiful horror
I watched Night and Fog this morning.
It's about the Holocaust and was filmed only ten years after liberations of the camps.
It mixes black and white film recorded during the war with color film showing the empty camps.
The one shot that stays with me is the room full of hair.
For a film that is only 31 minutes it's very powerful.
This is not a film for the squimish.... It shows the truth of the Nazi horror.

Affecting, but somewhat disappointing as well
Let me start by saying that this documentary will have an effect on the viewer. I would not recommend it to young children or those that are hyper-sensitive to photos of the results of atrocities. There are a number of photos that are a bit shocking to see. For someone who is not familiar with the Holocaust, this film will be an eye opener.

However, it's not the documentary that my father remembers. I am wondering if there is a different version of the documentary out there? From conversations with my father, this film - in comparison to the one he viewed - almost sugar coats the camps and what happened in them, using film shot by the S.S. guards that almost seems innocuous in comparison to reality. The version my father remembers contains more S.S. film clips, including one of a train coming into the station, and continuing through the entire sorting process, up to and into the gas chambers. I am interested in locating this film in order to further my own studies of this horrible period in our history.

My father saw a version that was in German, not French. Perhaps someone out there can help me locate the other version, if it exists?

Gruesome Images
This was a great documentary. I will never forget the images that were shown in this documentary. The style the director used with the archive was great; I felt a huge amount of sadness for the lives lost while watching the present day archive. The technique and style of how he put everything together kept my eyes glued to the television the entire time. The reality of what happened at those camps was so gruesome that it made me want to cry.

Moving
I was in a Holocaust literature class in college this past semester, and this film was shown. It was so powerful and moving. I will never forget the piles of hair or the bodies being shoveled into large pits by bulldozers.

Powerful Documentary
Resnais' Night and Fog is an example of the pure power of image. There is no comfort zone of actors and special effects between the viewer and the movie, it is all real. Life as it truly happened, in all its horrific reality. Although uncomfortable to watch, it is essential. The power of the documentary has been neglected over the past few years by the mainstream. The public wishes to suspend reality when viewing movies, not be confronted by it. Hopefully more directors will take a cue from Resnais and provide us with cinematic mirrors by which to judge ourselves. ... Read more

Description

For some soldiers, the war is never over... Legendary "New Wave" director Alain Resnais (Last Year at Marienbad) helms this emotionally-charged suspense-drama set in France and on the streets of fascist Spain, starring European film icon Yves Montand (Jean de Florette), a young Genevieve Bujold (Coma) in one of her first screen appearances, and the radiant Ingrid Thulin (Wild Strawberries). Montand is an aging revolutionary learning to accept that the fight for freedom should be passed to younger hands until a chance encounter with a student terrorist revives his militant passions, but catastrophe stalks Montand on his unswerving path to his last mission and a fateful choice. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

The Review is Not Over
It is fruitless to even attempt to form an opinion of a Resnais film without viewing it at least 4 or 5 times. This film, albeit not as perplexing as "Muriel" or "Last Year At Marienbad" still deserves a thorough analysis before one makes such a statement as one reviewer made.

Resanis was never a director that set out to entertain his audience; just as Beckett didn't write dime store fiction. First and foremost Resanis is infinitely interested in the formal techniques of the cinema. How do we represent the consciousness visually, how do we break the linear temporality which has plagued cinema, how do we present memories, and visions of the future, while existing in the present? This film does not explore these notions as deeply as "Muriel" does, but it is essential in studying the trajectory of one of cinemas most radical innovators.

It disappoints me to read reviews that say Resnais' characters are shallow or one dimensional. For these reviewers fail to see that Resnais, like Tarkovsky, Antonioni, or Bresson, was never a character driven director, inasmuch as people in his films are symbols, abstractions, vessels in which ideas are carried. Resnais doesn't seek the obvious and contrived drama which cheaply manipulates and numbs the audience. His films remain distant and objective, leaving the spectators minds "on" allowing them time to examine the phenomenon on the screen as they're watching; rather then tuning their minds off, and soaking them with emotions. Audiences, especially Americans, are not accustomed to this type of intellectually engaging viewing; in turn they often have hostile reactions. They announce the films to be "obscure," "boring," "pretentious," and other such empty adjectives. A friend relayed to me a story of viewing Angelopoulos' "Ulysses Gaze" in which a frustrated and bored audience began talking to each other loudly and making cat calls at the screen (a scene reminiscent of the debut of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"). This type of mob reaction is absolutely fascinating to me.

I will omit from commenting on the thematic element of the film because you can find many a synopsis written on the film all over the web. I'll just post a final caveat. When you come across a hostile, negative review, I recomend you to check the reviewers other reviews and see if their aesthetics agree with yours. Usually I find that people who laud films such as this, tend to favor more mainstream fare; so don't be discouraged, watch the film for yourself and make up your own mind.

Perhaps the worst movie ever
I am thrilled that a DVD version of this nightmare has been released. After 36 long years I am able to show my friends what I have so often argued is the most horrible example of film making in all human history. I recently viewed it for the second time, the first being in 1966. Perhaps I was too young then to appreciate the subtleties or nuances of the film, its textures and complexities. Gimme a break, this thing plays worse now than it did then.

The reason I firmly believe that this is the worst flick I've ever seen is that it actually takes itself seriously: It has a respected director (Resnais), stars the greatest French actor ever (Montand), and introduces the beautiful and talented Genevieve Bujold (oh those eyes). Throw in Ingrid Thulin (Bergman freaks know this talented woman) and the movie shouldn't miss. It does, it is just bad.

There's a story in there somewhere wrapped around a few steamy (for the times) sex scenes and a delightful bit of on-camera puking (always fun). Mostly the movie tries to insult your sensibilities while engaging in a pointless and confusing character study of a frustrated middle-aged anti-Franco Marxist. The problem is the guy is shallow, there is no character to study. The rest of the people are very '60s Euro-lefties, very chic, and very uninteresting to all but themselves (and Resnais) in 1966 - I can't begin to imagine how boring they must be to modern audiences. If you want to be entertained while battling against old right-wing Spanish dictators grab yourself some Hemingway. Now there's a guy who could study character.

When we left that theater in 1966 my date turned to me laughingly and said that if I lived a good life God would never make me see a movie that bad again. Apparently I've lived a good life.

Listen, I've sat through Ed Wood productions and Anne-Margaret's "Kitten With a Whip" but "La Guerre Est Finie" remains the worst flick I've ever seen.

No peace.
*La Guerre Est Finie* is about a Spanish revolutionary (Yves Montand) in his 3rd decade of agitating against Franco. For the nonce, he lives in France and has two mistresses. Ripe enough for you? Well, the movie was directed by Alain Resnais, a man who will never be confused with Ian Fleming. Therefore, don't expect an action flick or a spy spoof. Instead of shootouts, Resnais gives us the meticulous altering of passport photos. Instead of glamorous casinos, he shows the interior of a small garage of some guy's house and nondescript bedrooms. Instead of martinis, there's coffee. Instead of tuxedos, there's cardigans. You get the idea. But all the mundanities only serve to provide a depressingly realistic context for the movie's deeper themes, the main one being Time as destroyer. Time has certainly beat up Montand's Diego: his face is pock-marked and sagging. (It contrasts nicely to then-newcomer Genevieve Bujold's peppy little-girl face.) There's a grievous sense in *La Guerre Est Finie* that the world is running down, grinding to a halt, like Diego's comrades who keel over from coronaries. And when the clockwork finally breaks down someday, no one will be where they need to be. (Yes, Franco's dictatorship will even pass away, but too late for the characters in the story. Time destroys EVERYTHING.) This is one of the best films of the French New Wave by its best practitioner -- indispensable for movie lovers everywhere. Highest possible rating. The score, by the way, is one of the most beautiful ever put to film. [The DVD, by "Image Entertainment",[stink]s. The glories of Sacha Vierny's photography will remain obscured till this movie finally gets the Criterion Treatment (which it had better!). Yes yes, the movie is darkly composed, but not THIS darkly. No features, natch. Whatever. It's one of two Resnais films available on DVD, so I guess you'd better get it anyway.]

But who won?
It seems odd to have to explain who Alain Resnais is, or his significance in the history of cinema. At the peak of his reputation, when "La Guerre est Finie" was made, he was viewed as one of the world's most innovative and important filmmakers. No one with even the remotest interest in film would have been unfamiliar with his name. Speaking personally, few have influenced me as deeply as he, in both technique and thematic interest.

Time moves on, however, and while Resnais will certainly have a place in film history, it will probably not be because of "La Guerre est Finie." It is clearly a product of its time, not just because Spain's subsequent history has blunted much of the film's thematic bite, but more because of its rather too self-conscious pensiveness. While the subject of a Resistance fighter moving across borders could work as an action film, "La Guerre est Finie" deliberately avoids much suspense in order to dramatize the dull stretches between high points.

This focus is certainly preferable to hyped-up action, but unfortunately Resnais and screenwriter Jorge Semprun do not so much reveal and evoke as replace one set of conventions with another. If you have seen any European, particularly French, art films from the 60s, you know what to expect: lots of philosophical talk, endless sequences of characters rolling around in bed, much political attitudinizing, and even more pointless walking around the streets of Paris. "La Guerre est Finie" is hardly alone in using these clichés, but that's the point. In what is supposed to be an in-depth examination of a character in crisis, fashion substitutes for observation and the results have more to do with filmmaking habit than any real grappling with the subject. (With one exception: the debates in the Communist cell to which the main character belong, thick with the pedantic rationalizations that give Marxist theory a bad name, feel like the gentle parody of a knowing insider.)

Which is not to suggest that "La Guerre est Finie" is either cheap or tawdry, merely banal in everything other than form. The camerawork and editing are so superbly rhythmed and timed you don't much care about the subject. (Given his talents, it's a pity Resnais has never made a musical.) Ironically, though perhaps inevitably, "Guerre" is most effective in the suspense scenes. It is nothing much better than respectably well-meaning as character drama; as formal exercise, on the other hand, it is peerless.

A Fine DVD Edition of this Underappreciated Resnais Gem
Until now only poor video transfers of "La Guerre Est Finie" have been available, so I was very eager to see how this DVD transfer looked. Needless to say, the transfer is wonderful and exceeded my expectations. Although one will not mistake this Image Entertainment transfer for a Criterion release, the presentation of this film is better than the those of the other two Resnais films currently available on DVD (Last Year at Marienbad" and "Mon Oncle d'Amerique"). Image's releases have been inconsistent, yielding wonderful issues of "Othello" and "City Lights," while producing horrible editions of Eisenstein's films. Although this issue of "La Guerre Est Finie" offers no special features, special features are often overrated anyway--what counts is that the film is shown here in its original widescreen presentation with removable subtitles, the value of which some producers have not yet recogniz